The long period of national formation had come practically to an end.

With the reign of Edward begins the constitutional England in which we live.

It is not that any chasm separates our history before it from our history after it as the chasm of the Revolution divides the history of France, for we have traced the rudiments of our constitution to the first moment of the English settlement in Britain.

But it is with these as with our language.

The tongue of AElfred is the very tongue we speak, but in spite of its identity with modern English it has to be learned like the tongue of a stranger.